The Big Day Out extravaganza rolled into Perth for another year and for the second time Shape hosted their warm up event, The Big Night Out. Last years show, which featured the LCD Soundsystem pair of James Murphy and Patt Mahoney playing their disco jams, John Stainer from Battles and the Midnight Juggers DJs, proved to feature highly on many end of year best show lists. So it’s understandable how quickly the tickets for this show sold out. Inside it appeared the majority of the crowd were not holding back for the Big Day Out, which many of them would be attending the next day in ridiculous heat. This year’s show brought in one of the most exciting bands from the Big Day Out, Hot Chip, to play a DJ set. When I arrived for the sold out show I expected to be greeted by the line that is a usual feature of the popular club but thankfully on this occasion security decided to not make ticket holders wait out the front.

Cut Copy DJs, featuring a bearded Dan Whitford, headlined downstairs. I’m a fan of beards, I sport one myself but I don’t really think Dan’s is working for him, but what do I know maybe happy hobo is the new look of summer? Take a look at the pictures from the night to make up your own mind. Cut Copy had the downstairs level of Shape bursting as they tore through some big tracks with the highlight for the set being the remix of MGMT’s Of Moons, Birds And Monsters by Big Day Out performers Holy Ghost. It’s a stomping track full of spacey, disco sounds that MGMT wished they could create. The downstairs area is normally unbearably hot, well unbearably hot to those not inebriated but the recent addition of industrial fans seems to have reduced the temperature considerably. It’s still hot but at least you can dance for more than five minutes without having escape to the outdoor a sweaty mess to stop yourself from passing out from heat exhaustion.

I ventured upstairs to check out Melbourne’s Andee Frost to find a fairly deserted dance floor. The empty room had nothing to with his DJ skills or track selection. I think it was due to the majority of the audience huddling towards artists they knew the name of. Once Hot Chip were due to begin Cut Copy’s dancefloor quickly cleared out. One thing you can expect from a Hot Chip DJ set is to hear a diverse range of songs and genres all designed for one purpose, to make you feel good and dance and they didn’t disappoint. Hot Chip’s Joe Goddard and Alexis Taylor came out excitedly with Joe giving me a high five as he got to the decks. Many DJs can get stuck into the habit of playing one genre of music, which can lead to the audience zoning out, which is great for trance fans but real people don’t like to spend the night staring at the roof. If you’ve heard the brilliant DJ Kicks mix album Hot Chip released a few years back or if you’ve heard any of the remixes they’ve released you’ll know that Hot Chip don’t suffer from this problem.

It was another great night at Shape that allowed those of us who are unwilling to stand for hours at the mercy of Perth’s summer to witness some of their favourite artists in action. One day Perth could build a massive indoor arena to fit the Big Day Out, but until that day at least we have the Big Night Out.